Hans-Adolf Pruetzmann

Hans-Adolf Pruetzmann (31 August 1901-21 May 1945) was an Higher SS and Police Leader and Obergruppenfuhrer in Nazi Germany, and he carried out the Holocaust in the Baltics.

Biography
Hans-Adolf Pruetzmann was born on 31 August 1901 in Tolkemit, West Prussia, German Empire. Pruetzmann joined the Freikorps in 1918 and fought in the Silesian Uprisings, and he worked as an agricultural official in Pomerania, Brandenburg, and East Prussia from 1923 to 1930. In 1929, he joined the Sturmabteilung, and from June to November 1941 he served as the SS' High SS and Police Leader in Latvia, where he was assigned to carry out the Holocaust against the Jews of the Baltics. Alfred Rosenberg and Hinrich Lohse defeated his plan to massacre all of the undesirable groups quickly, as they wanted slave labor to be employed; Friedrich Jeckeln replaced Pruetzmann. In mid-1944, Pruetzmann assisted in the quelling of the Warsaw Uprising by the Polish Home Army, one of the last major victories of Nazi Germany during the war. During this battle, hundreds of thousands of Polish civilians were massacred and the city of Warsaw was destroyed. Pruetzmann was given command of the Werwolf guerrilla forces project in 1944 by Heinrich Himmler, but Werwolf units were never employed by Nazi Germany during World War II. He committed suicide in Luneburg on 21 May 1945 while in Allied captivity following Germany's surrender to the Allied Powers.